No not the guy on the left.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yl5LaocojO4&w=500&h=307&rel=0] The music video for “Die Heuwels Fantasies” by South African (Afrikaans) band, Noorderlig. I am more into the video than I’m into the music–Sean Jacobs.

Political economist Hein Marais’ 1998 book, “South Africa Limits to Change: The Political Economy of Transition,” is a classic of the late 1990s. I have described Marais before, on this blog, as “… one of the trenchant critics of South Africa’s [political and economic] transition,” and the book “a masterpiece.” This past week Marais’ follow-up […]

Look out for a a special issue of African Journalism Studies on “The Fifa World Cup 2010 in the News.” I guest edited.  While you’re contemplating whether you’d pay to read the opinions of academics on the greatest sporting event in the world, here’s the relevant parts from my introduction to the special issue: It is […]

For the final assignment of a class I teach on Media and Africa at The New School I asked students to make short video profiles of African immigrant experiences in New York City. Most, if not all, of the students had never blogged before, nor filmed, much less edited something for public viewing. None of […]

This is an ad to promote the wares of Willow TV—the California-based portal for live Internet streaming of big cricket matches—ahead of India’s tour of South Africa, a tour that kicks off today. I’ll let the stereotypes of South Africa (Afrikaner farmers, coloured klopse and Zulu fighters) and the idea of cricket as a white […]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPPYQaAJR5U&w=500&h=307&rel=0] South African DJ Hamma (former member of Brasse Vannie Kaap, these days “1/3rd of the dj collective known as Spindle Crew”) will soon drop a first solo-album called “Ctrl-Alt-Del, A non-responsive project.”*  The song in the video above, “Still got love,” is a first single. Rhymes are by Reason Lebaka a.k.a. Reasonthemass. * With […]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNFRVmtz1GA&w=500&h=307&rel=0] South African artist Lesego Rampolokeng, who grew up in Soweto, performing his “Fela Sermon” live in Barcelona in 2003. (If you want to appreciate the full Rampolokeng, I can recommend his album “End Beginnings” with the Kalahari Surfers, released in 1993.) Via Chimurenga Magazine.

Writer Imraan Coovadia, on lit magazine n+1‘s blog, writing about the tenplate for “the South African story” in Western media: … In the run up to the [2010] World Cup even usually intelligent publications like Harper’s and the London Review of Books were replicating the hoariest clichés in sight. Each magazine had rented out space to its […]

In December 2009 the photographer Emmanuel Andre and filmmaker Stephanie Wang Breal went on a trip to South Africa as part of the charity, Room 13 to teach photography to young children at two schools; in Soweto outside Johannesburg and Botshabelo in the Free State Province. Andre and Wang Breal made a book, documentary and […]

If you’re into house music (I can tolerate some of it) it’s worth listening to this DJ set by South African Culoe De Song recorded at the Oppikoppi Music Festival in South Africa. His new “afro-house” album will be released on November 30th,   Listen here.

When the Johannesburg Art Gallery bought one of Mr. [Gerard] Sekoto’s paintings in 1940, they had to hire him as a janitor so that he could see his own art on display—circumventing the law outlawing black people from entering the country’s museums. Now considered one of the most important 20th century South African artists, Sekoto […]

Sean Jacobs Note from a friend who closely watches the South African political scene: Below [the link follows] is a JZ [Jacob Zuma] post-Durban posting [the ruling party, the ANC, held its policy conference there last weekend], on Baobab, The Economist‘s Africa blog. Am I wrong to scratch my head at everyone claiming JZ emerges […]